How Technology Affects Writing

Developments in technology inevitably affect the course of our writing. Computers and cell phones are just two of the more visible advances that come to mind. I wrote my first manuscript on a small portable typewriter that would get the type bars stuck together if you typed too fast. That was 1948 when I was a journalism student at the University of Tennessee. I turned out the second novel manuscript in the sixties using an up-to-date Royal typewriter. It wasn't until I retired in mid-1989 that I started my current fiction-writing career with a computer.

I used an early word processing program with a limited file size, meaning you had to keep creating new files with each few chapters. Then I switched to Microsoft Word in the early nineties and have had no problems since. The characters in my books have grown with the computer, too. In Beware the Jabberwock (written circa 1991), my protag Burke Hill doesn't use a computer, but he gets a bit of education on the subject in the next book, The Poksu Conspiracy (currently under revision for release in a few months).

On the subject of telephones, at the time of those early books there were pay phones and phone booths everywhere. One of my writers group colleagues says "he hung up the phone" is passé. Not in those days. Most people used the familiar dial instrument. There were cell phones, but people didn't carry them around in a pocket. They weighed a pound or better. My characters had no use for them in those first books.

You couldn't just dial or punch in the number for an overseas call. You had to place it through an overseas operator, and the call quality wasn't always the best. Now you just enter the international code and number and there's your party.

For communication on the go back then, investigators used hand-held portable radios. That's the scenario in Beware the Jabberwock when an FBI agent needs to talk with another colleague at the Atlanta airport.

The digital age for photography hadn't arrived yet, so all photos were taken with film. I opted for the latest film development, though, producing unbelievable images using Kodak's Tmax 3200 film pushed to ASA 25000. It would make a license plate readable from two blocks away. In a 2011 book I updated the technology to use a NASA system for enhancing moving images.

Since 1991-2 was prior to the World Wide Web, information searching was done mostly at the library. My character Burke Hill looks up information at both a public library and a newspaper library. My research for the book took place primarily at the Vanderbilt University library, using both books and magazines. Now I get the same sort of data on my computer with a Google search.

So it's obvious that technology has a big impact on how we write as well as what we write. Let me know how your work is affected by other technological developments.

Incidentally, Beware the Jabberwock is now available for the Kindle here and will be published in paperback in a few weeks.

The Information Age run amuck

If you still harbor any doubts as to whether the information age, techno dominance, or whatever you choose to call it, has fully encompassed the younger set, I witnessed the unequivocal answer this morning. Our twelve-year-old grandson went to the bathroom and used his cell phone to ask his grandmother for a roll of toilet paper. Is that a giant leap for mankind, or what?

He has so many gadgets there’s hardly room for a bed in his bedroom. A TV came first, or course. Then he needed a Play Station and a DVD player. To hook all that up and make it work properly required a spaghetti-like heap of wires and cables and adapters. When I got a new computer a couple of years ago, I gave him my old PC with a flat screen monitor and inkjet printer.

Meanwhile, in order to play games on the go, he needed a Game Boy, then upgraded to a PSP (that’s Play Station Portable to the uninitiated). When Comcast came out with its On Demand setup at no extra charge, we ordered it so Sarah could get the Hallmark Channel with its family-friendly movies. Justin discovered it had all sorts of cool features for replaying recent shows and bouncing about the channels. We got tired of switching back and forth from On Demand to the regular remote, so moved the OD box to Justin’s TV.

He really needed an iPod, and somebody gave him one for his birthday a year ago. It didn't take too long to lose it, as small as they are. He recently got another one, but I think he's left it somewhere he doesn't remember.

The burgeoning array of electronic devices soon required a corner computer desk. That further limited the space in his room. As with all kids, I guess, he chooses to refer to his “wants” as “needs.” The next mantra became “I need a laptop.” Every kid in his class has one, he claimed, without any evidence to back it up.

My current laptop is a Gateway that I bought on sale a couple of years ago. I use it on the road and when writing in the living room seated in my recliner. After his endless agitating, we told Justin we’d give him some money on his birthday and he could take the rest out of his savings and buy a laptop. He “had” to have a Gateway, of course. When Tennessee had it’s annual sales tax holiday prior to school opening last month, we found a Gateway on sale at Best Buy.

The first week he carried it around the house with him. He wanted to take it to the store and to church and anywhere else, but we put the kibosh on that. Now I have to get a parallel-to-USB adapter cable so he can print from the laptop. Oh, the joys of technology.

His friends are now using some new kind of PSP-type gadget. He needs one, but that has been sidetracked temporarily by his latest fascination. He’s taking band this year and just acquired a snare drum and kit. In addition to the snare and sticks, it includes a small xylophone. It’s probably the only non-electronic thing he’s become fascinated with lately.

Oh, that cell phone he used in the bathroom? His mother, whom he sees infrequently, gave it to him on his birthday. He gets the Internet and all that good stuff on it. I’m not sure how long she’s going to be willing to pay the phone bill. We’ll see. Meanwhile, we try to monitor his forays into cyberspace as much as possible, though it ain’t easy. He’s on Facebook and no telling where else. Last night he showed me a website he’s set up.

Hang onto your cyberhats.